Vanzara gets it right: The meaning for J&K http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=22738

By Firdaus Ahmed

Vanzara has blown the lid on the fallacious argument usually put out to explain away encounter cases. The killers are taken to be afflicted with a Rambo mentality and seekers of medals, out of turn promotions and bounty. The problem gets reduced to the individuallevel at the expense of the systemic. This enables exaction of a price, when and if ever the push of accountability comes to the shove of action, by incarceration of the culpable individuals to the legal system, quite like Vanzara. Attention gets deflected from the culpability at higher levels and the subversion of law and institutions that makes encounters possible. The lesson for J&K is that it needs redefining normalcy away from violence indicators but in the retrieving of ground lost to departures from the straight and narrow. But, the critical Vanzara message, liable to be missed, is that it is not enough to blame the tools alone. Take the recent killings by BSF troopers at Shopian, reminiscent of those at Gool earlier this year. The killings can only partially be attributed to a trigger-happy outfit or a scared set of isolated paramilitary men holding out against a mob. An investigation will only establish individual culpability, screening out the larger picture. The people died because they were part of an agitated crowd. The crowd gathered because the presence of the picket enabled them to vent their anger at an egregious provocation of having a misconceived concert for the elite in Srinagar to advertise the return of 'normalcy'. The problem therefore was not entirely in triggers being pressed in hate or panic, but more in the non-removal of operating bases in the midst of people despite removal being the best indicator of normalcy. To this inability to recognise what needs doing in returning normalcy must be attributed the deaths of protesting civilians. The onus is not at the door of soldiers in camouflage reacting in situations they have little control over, but to those who have allowed the environment of insecurity to persist. Vanzara has got it right: those in control owe a greater responsibility and need being arraigned, at a maximum in the court of law under the doctrine of responsibility of the chain of command, and at a minimum in the court of public opinion. By no means does this exonerate the troopers who have belittled themselves, for it is in crunch situations and not on the parade ground where discipline and self control are to count. If fire discipline is absent then they are undeserving of their uniform. That said, their officers cannot be exonerated. They are largely happy with feudal services their men furnish in order that a happy relationship develops in which they in return do not hold men responsible for occupational standards. This is a particular malady in the central police forces, which to begin with are of questionable quality and secondly are officered at the upper echelons with the IPS, who have acquired the trappings of power too early in life and service. However, if the deaths are to have a meaning for India outside of Kashmir, then the Neros in Srinagar and Delhi need questioning alongside. The chief minister has mastered the fine art of passing the buck on to Delhi. It is apparent that concentrating as he is on delivery of routine governance, rocking the boat by tendering his resignation does not figure in his sight. Awaiting a worse day implies that the chief minister expects worse, a prospect none too appetising. Srinagar also has Delhi's representative, a Governor into his second tenure. Clearly, he too has exhausted his breath on Delhi. He was the right man to do spring cleaning after the previous NDA appointee leaving his ideological debris behind. Had Delhi had not lost its nerve after 26/11 on the road to patching up with Islamabad, he could have well have delivered Kashmir to normalcy as part of the internal dimension of repair. Now it is apparent that his utility is in his success in keeping the lid on the Valley, a feat he can be credited with over the past four years. As for Delhi, the Kashmiri saying 'Delhi is distant' captures it all. How so ever much it might remonstrate that Kashmir is an internal issue of India, it is unable to unravel the internal from the external. Vajpayee had created the conditions for doing so that UPA I had taken further, only to be derailed as mentioned at Mumbai 26/11: so much for the relative power of Delhi and the Jihad Inc., across. Internally, UPA II has been a lost tenure, with the output of the last committee of interlocutors being trashed. With sights set further than Srinagar on Kabul and a national elections looming, movement on Kashmir awaits the next incumbent of 7 Race Course Road. That Kashmir does not count is thus self-evident. Consequently, the message for people is that agitating for an end to insecurity is the only way they can be heard. Recognising that it has left people with no other recourse, Delhi has left armed minders in place, empowered with AFSPA and similar laws covering the paramilitary and the police. Responsibility for what then transpires on the barbed wire and concertina is clearly not only of those facing each other on the frontline, but those who have contrived thus to put them in such a position. So if there is an accounting, as Vanzara seeks to remind us if only to save his own skin, he has got it right in saying that powers higher than his level, the supervisory one, should also be in the dock, if not in cells; for inaction, if not for mala-fide action. The upshot of the analysis is that there is more to come. Delhi has indicated that Islamabad has upped the infiltration this year. This is no doubt to set the stage for next year. While earlier in the nineties the period of mass action preceded that of insurgency, which in turn was displaced by proxy war, this time round the worst case could be simultaneity of the three. The last time round the downing of the Berlin Wall set the context for Kashmir. This time there is the untidy aftermath of Arab Spring supplying the spark for the tinder. Pakistan's excuse will be that it gave peace a chance and India squandered the opportunity by its inability and unwillingness to make a distinction between the state and its bearded proxies. The time for political action having past, regrettably violence appears the lone recourse for all sides. Perversely, the bright side is that thereafter it would be very difficult to play Nero. (The author is a blogger at Think South Asia: http://www.subcontinentalmusings.blogspot.in/) 17 Sep 13

lc ambush at indiatogether.org

LINE OF CONTROL 
An ambush loaded with meaning

http://www.indiatogether.org/2013/aug/fah-ambush.htm

The assault at the Line of Control appears to be a well-planned ambush. It comes at a time when India and Pakistan are tentatively inching closer. It is a message not only to India but also to the Pakistani civilians keen on better relations with India, writes Firdaus Ahmed. 
 

13 August 2013 - The Border Action Team of the Pakistan Army's Mujahid Battalion deployed across Indian defences on the Line of Control probably picked the time to strike quite tactically. News reports suggest that the casualties were soldiers from the Bihar and Maratha Light Infantry regiments. Usually such a mix of troops is seen only when one battalion is handing over defences to another, prior to leaving for its next place of posting. At such junctures, troops are most vulnerable since the new ones do not know the terrain and procedures, and the old ones are looking forward to some well earned rest. Also, in such a situation, the two units do not know each other well enough to mount a cohesive counter.

The forces opposite can discern such change-overs from preceding activity, and use the opportunity for an ambush. Therefore, it is not so much Pakistani prowess but Indian vulnerability that resulted in the tragic loss of lives.

FOR FULL VERSION SEE indiatogether.org

Contrary to the now popular position, the ambush was a precise one carried out, as successful ambushes usually are on the LoC, by a few well-prepared members of a cohesive ambush party. Their cohesion in action implies they were of one body of troops and not an assortment as we are now being led to believe.

They could well have been Pakistani special forces, but then they would not need to number up to 20. Therefore, the two 'facts' put in the public domain by the army are contradictory, calling into question the credibility of its reporting. The ambush appears a typical one on the LoC, and part of the series of tit-for-tat exchanges that have been going on since last year, including the beheading incident of January. Therefore, for the government to have initially wanted to continue on its path of resetting relations with Pakistan was entirely plausible. However, the manner in which it has been deflected from this intent suggests that the ambush has had a consequential strategic impact.

The ambush comes at a time when India and Pakistan are tentatively inching closer. Nawaz Sharif had became the first third-time prime minister in Pakistan after its first democratic change-over. He has been associated with bids to rein in the military in his earlier terms; the last such attempt leading to his displacement by Musharraf in a military coup. With Musharraf currently behind bars, it seemed a portentous moment for India to rework its Pakistan strategy.

For full article see indiatogether.org

The last time Nawaz Sharif attempted to reach out by inviting Vajpayee to Lahore, the Pakistani army spiked the initiative by its Kargil intrusion. This time round they appear to be sensitising Sharif once again to going slow on relations with India.

Alongside, the message to India is that the mending of relations cannot be India's way, in which the Kashmir issue is sidelined in favour of other more promising issues as economic opening up. Perhaps more important and urgent for the Pakistani military is the timing of the ambush to coincide with the Taliban's attack on India's Jalalabad Consulate. The message is that India must let up on any veto over Pakistan's Taliban-mediated ambitions in Afghanistan once the US departs in 2014.

India is aware that such a reversion is possible in Kashmir. The recent interception and killing of 19 infiltrators in Kashmir signifies the upswing in attempts by 80 per cent over last year. It continues to hold Kashmir in the grip of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, despite periodic assertions against it by the chief minister in Srinagar. That this keeps Kashmiri resentment simmering is evident from the spontaneous challenge to the highhandedness of a BSF search party in Gool that resulted in killings of six civilians.

India is in a 'wait and watch' mode in the geopolitical theatre, waiting for the 2014 denouement in Afghanistan to play out. While refusing to arm Karzai, India is attempting to strengthen the Afghan National Army that is to take on the expected Taliban onslaught once the American's draw down.

Politically, the opposition has come into high gear to roundly sound off the government on its Pakistan policy. Since its champion prefers a 'strong man' image, strained relations with Pakistan would serve the opposition's campaign better in order to present its prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, as the appropriate choice. The government, aware of the nuisance value of these lobbies and unwilling to hand over yet another election year stick to the opposition to beat it with, has promptly revised its intent to proceed further on the Pakistan front. Its interlocutor, Nawaz Sharif, is also ambiguously positioned since his support base in Pakistan comprises assorted fundamentalists who he cannot take on, leave alone tame.

India's decision to wait out Sharif's lame duck predecessor is proving costly. While waiting for the polls in Pakistan to throw up a new leadership, the Indian government has run out of time for reshaping relations with Pakistan, since it is itself looking at polls in less than a year's time.

The call for an early resumption of meaningful engagement between the two states by the co-chairs of the India-Pakistan Track II Chaophraya dialogue, Sherry Rehman and Amitabh Mattoo, in their joint article in The Hindu, "Seizing the Opportunity" (see this link, appears premature. While it may be worth doing, expecting this government to run the gauntlet, beset as it is on multiple fronts commanding more immediacy such as Telangana, is wishful. The best the government can do under the circumstances is to ensure that the status quo does not degenerate further, either with Pakistan over Afghanistan or in Kashmir. In this it is unlikely to find its own institutions, including the army, any more helpful than the Pakistanis.

- See more at: http://www.indiatogether.org/2013/aug/fah-ambush.htm#sthash.LqDSvg79.dpuf

lc ambush

The LoC incident calls for self-regulation by the army http://www.kashmirtimes.in/newsdet.aspx?q=21158

By Firdaus Ahmed

The divergence between the press release of the defence ministry and the defence minister's statement in parliament has hogged headlines and primetime. The contretemps owes to the government in its wisdom, and perhaps rightly so, privileging the opening up to Pakistan's newly elected Nawaz Sharif dispensation over the tactical details of the incident. The army for its part appeared more intent on getting the message implicating the Pakistani army across.  It cannot be certain that there was active involvement of the Pakistani army as the press release of the defence ministry's PRO in Udhampur, now rescinded, would have us believe. A 20 man strong ambush in an area reportedly on the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC), even if across the fence, is difficult to digest in light of the army's own publicity to its surveillance measures in place over the past decade. It is not impossible therefore that the ambush was carried out by a smaller party, as would plausibly be the case.  Attributing the ambush to an ambush party numbering about a score owes perhaps to the army's embarrassment at being caught off guard and to explain away the high loss of lives. It is to compound the embarrassment to admit to terrorists getting the better of the army. It would be better from the military's institutional point of view instead to highlight the Pakistani army as an active participant rather than in a supportive role.  It is also debatable whether the Pakistani army was directly involved. The army does not need to participate since it has its proven proxies to do the damage. It is also not interested in seeing a breakdown in the ceasefire, since it would put the army directly in the sights of the Indian army. The Indian army rightly prefers to have Pakistan's army directly pay a price for its proxy war. In case the Pakistani army involves itself directly, then it would lay itself open to retribution by Indian army - a circumstance it would prefer to avoid by having its proxies bear the burden instead.  Without a doubt, there would be active connivance of the Pakistani army with it, if not active participation. The tit-for-tat at the LoC has been now on for some time if the incidents stretching back to the January beheadings are included. Armies typically, as the army chief reminded us on the last occasion are expected to be 'aggressive'. They also prefer the time and place of their own choosing to respond. This means that the latest LoC incident cannot be taken in isolation but must be seen as part of a series. Given that mutilation has figured earlier; the stronger possibility now of the direct involvement of the Pakistani army; and the numbers of dead in the incident increasing as of this time round, there appears an escalation on the LoC.  In the event, the details of the incident and their veracity have proven political capital for the opposition. This owes to the political implications of the incident that are arguably the more significant. As rightly editorialised elsewhere, there are powerful political and institutional forces on both sides. A pattern has emerged in which such forces sabotage any possibility of warming of relations. It can easily be reckoned that the Pakistani army, standing to lose most from such a warming of relations, would be opposed to it and such incidents are a handiwork of that army. That certain forces in India too stand to lose in case of change is also well known. These can therefore be expected to take advantage of Pakistani army chicanery and lay the blame for the continuing of frayed relations on that army. The question raised here is not whether such forces have a constituency within the Indian army - which is patently not the case - but the utility of the army's position for political forces in India in the run up to national elections.  The readiness of the army for identification of the Pakistani army as participant-perpetrator of the latest outrage on the LoC, thereby putting it at variance with the statement of its minister in parliament suggests more than just bureaucratic bungling. This time round instead of its traditional secrecy on identifications of units and access to the units in question on the LoC of the media, the army has instead behaved differently. It has not only given out the unit identifications, but also permitted the visual media access to posts on LoC for the media to do its rabble rousing bit. Taken along with the opposition tirade, this not only heightens the aspect of government incompetence but brings into question the government's recent policy tack reaching out to Pakistan.  What emerges is that the army is a player in the bureaucratic game of influencing policy. Widely perceived by analysts and its own self-perception that it is not part of the proverbial 'policy loop', it is possibly exerting overtime to record its position on the issue in question. That in the process it is resorting to indirect means of pressuring the government makes it less than professional, and makes it, in this instance, certainly fall far short of its own yardstick of professionalism. No doubt, there is a case for including the army position in policy deliberations and there is a strong case for having its apex officials on all such bodies. Nevertheless, resort by the army to such measures is less than 'kosher'.  The problem is in the fallout of such professional shortfalls, having origin in structural deformities in the Indian security establishment, on the 'Kashmir issue'. The army using the media adroitly for voicing its reservations on policy matters ends up exercising a 'veto'. Kashmir is no stranger to this in the internal security policy domain where the vexed question of AFSPA continues unchanged under what is widely perceived in Kashmir, and not least by its chief minister, an army veto. If the apprehension here of extension of the army's policy space to restrict government foreign policy initiatives holds any water, then some cautionary measures are called for. Firstly, the army's case for inclusion in policy deliberations, that has wide backing in the strategic community, must be taken on board. The game by bureaucrats that keeps it out is apparently having a higher price than the nation can afford in terms of unintended fallout, such as in Kashmir. Secondly, there has to be a rap on the knuckles in this case. The army, using the cover of transparency, has served the media hysteria. In this it has flirted with the role of a political player. Leaving this unattended would lead to emergence of a marriage of convenience between the political opposition with elections in its sights and the army over a policy question of levels of proximity with Pakistan. This has to be nipped in the bud by the ministry, lest it resurface over the remainder of the election year.  Lastly, the army could well do some soul searching. It is hardly likely that its minister charged with also untangling the Congress' Telangana knot, can also supervise it effectively. If the bureaucrats were to attempt to do so, it is more likely than not that the army will take umbrage that this is an instance of 'bureaucratic' as against 'political' control. Therefore, the army leadership has to be more circumspect. It is not politically savvy enough to know how information it lets out and its position will be manipulated by political forces in India advantaged by adverse relations with Pakistan. It needs to reappraise its apolitical credentials to ensure it remains equivalent of Caesar's wife.  (The author writes at http://www.subcontinentalmusings.blogspot.in/)

Elections 2014: The Worst Case Scenario
http://www.milligazette.com/print/issue/16-31-july-2013
Milligazette, 16-31 July 2013

Narendra Modi’s campaign for prime-ministership has had an inauspicious start. But his mentor’s walkout in huff, early desertion by a key ally and the public relations disaster amidst a natural disaster will not faze him. His stewardship of the BJP’s campaign ahead can be expected to be energetic, innovative and less than mindful of norms, ethics and the law. As legal pincers close in on him in the Ishrat Jahan and the Gulberg Society cases, he will likely pull out the stops. Abandoning restraint, his campaign will get into stride with its cunning and subterfuge abandoned in favour of barefaced communalism.

Electoral arithmetic however is built by the common voter who has repeatedly proven wiser than politicians believe him to be. Modi’s campaign will therefore not have enough propulsion to get him to 7 Race Course Road. But then, NaMo is not in the race for being a leader of the opposition and waiting a term for the rulers to discredit themselves. This is his moment. His manner of seizing of it could frame the ‘worst case scenario’.

Par for the course will be the usual means that gladden a Hindutvavadi’s heart. Among these will figure a replay of the Sohrabuddin episode in which jihadis will be projected as gunning for his life. A few ‘encounters’ will embellish his case that his opposition is in league with minority extremists to finish off his challenge. These will be depicted as a fifth column, linking them with the proverbial ‘external hand’, set to come to fore with the coincident departure of the US from AfPak. A convenient rise in unexplained bomb blasts across the country will help push the minority onto the ropes. Strategic commentary, forever in search of a ‘strong man’ to expel the ‘soft state’ image of India, will latch on to this ‘externally abetted internal enemy’, to use a Chanakyan phrase. Security in peril, India will be asked to vote for the one answer: NaMo.

The ‘foreignness’ of the young princeling, the ruling party’s contender, will be underlined to suggest subversion of the rise of an authentic India. The closing in of the law on Mr. Modi will be depicted as misuse of the judiciary by the ruling Congress to keep him from power and an instance of minority appeasement. While dirty tricks will harden Modi’s power base among traditionally right wing voters, these may deepen scepticism among others. Yet, in the event, the election may prove a close call. It is here that the ‘worst case’ scenario kicks in.

This could be a ‘soft coup’ in the tradition of George Bush’s pipping of Al Gore at the post in Florida. Or it could be more blatant. Extremist political formations could take over the streets; while Modi acolytes, including one on bail for triple murder and restrained from entering Gujarat, energise a putsch. The narrative will be that the rightful winner is being deprived by a conspiracy of anti-Hindu and by extension anti-India forces; forcing them to act to save democracy and India.

The penetration of rightist ideology in security forces is well known. The Gujarat police’s showing in the 2002 carnage is an example of levels of subversion of constitutional and professional norms. This was in the early days of Mr. Modi at the helm. By 2004 the Gujarat police was masterminding ‘encounters’ designed to build Modi’s image as Lauh Purush II with which he could eventually make his bid for Delhi. Its link to the questionable spate of blasts in metropolitan cities in the run up to last elections is evident from the supposedly fortuitous manner of recovery of bombs in Surat. The record of Maharashtra’s ATS and Delhi’s Special Cell suggests the Gujarat police not an exception. Karnataka, AP and Rajasthan police have not acquitted themselves with any credit in investigating ‘terror’ cases. Exceptions in khaki are instead the likes of late Hemant Karkare.

Black propaganda, that such blasts are instances of, has an intelligence imprint. This is only now coming out into the open with the CBI dragnet closing in on the IB head in Gujarat. It is inconceivable that the then IB chief in Delhi, now ensconced in a right wing think tank in the national capital, did not know of the game-plan in Gujarat. It is clear that the objective was to implicate the minority with terror seemingly originating in Pakistan. The narrative was that terror was no longer confined to J&K but had spread its tentacles to the heartland. This helped with India attempting to corner Pakistan diplomatically, since post 9/11 Pakistan was supping with the US. The internal political dividend was intended to see continuation of NDA to power in 2004 and a return in 2008, which in the event were belied.

The paramilitary, exposed to operations against Kashmiri militants and to Maoists, are primed for lending muscle. Bureaucrats, privileging self-preservation, can be expected to go into a ‘wait and watch’ mode. Strategic commentators, largely of conservative-realist persuasion, will allow themselves to be manipulated into providing the narrative cover that ends justify the means. Hindutva champions and closet communalists embedded in the media will pitch in to help India recover from the shock.

That a scenario of a right wing take over is not far-fetched is evident from the inevitable contention between the ruling party and opposition over the nominations list to head India’s security forces and intelligence services. The very fact that the professionalism or competence of the candidates is not enough suggests that their political inclinations matter. The ruling party pitches for agency heads that can contain the ideological penetration of the opposition in their forces. The opposition would favour those who are willing to compromise on the apolitical feature of their force. That security forces universally are conservative in orientation makes the Congress more alert to dangers and ready to act to prevent them through the selection process. The recent bust ups over the Army, IB and CBI chiefs, all of whom would be having tenures that will see them through the elections, indicates a wariness making for plausibility of the worst case. 

From the controversy last year over the succession chain of the army it is clear that the key player in the scenario playing out or otherwise could well be the army chief. When the government ruled against giving the former chief an extension till his claimed age of retirement, it was partially with an eye that the current chief would likely thwart any political misadventure. The question is: Will the Indian Army, known for keeping clear of politics, step up? Such intrusion into politics is hardly useful over the long term, even if it is necessary to pre-empt a worse possibility. Given this, prevention is better than cure.

The cure would be in the government revealing the extent of right wing conspiracy over the past decade to malign the minority: a function of the success of the project of bombings and staged ‘encounters’. The current case in point, Ishrat Jahan’s, is merely the tip of the iceberg. It is also being progressed by the CBI with an eye on keeping Mr. Modi off balance. However, be that as it may, while further revelations may embarrass India, it would work right wing contamination out of the system once and for all and ensure that the conservative nationalists play by the rules in future: the first step being in dumping their current  vanguard.  

Opinion

Distancing from Cloak and Dagger By Firdaus Ahmed http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=20014 India is no stranger to intelligence operations. The founding director of its external intelligence agency, RAW, MK Kaw, is legendary. The RAW itself acquired its spurs in the run up to the 1971 War. While more is known of its work in raising, equipping and sustaining the Mukti Bahini, its contribution perhaps went way beyond that. If the start of the conflict is dated to the alleged hijacking of the Indian Airlines boeing to Lahore by Kashmiri separatists in February that year, then it can be credited with a shaping, stage setting role in the war. The incident enabled India to cut off air links overflying India between Pakistan's western and eastern wings. The indirect route via Sri Lanka led to the Pakistani military unable to fly in troops in response to the unrest; thereby leading to a heavy handed crackdown which in turn fed the Mukti Bahini with material and legitimacy. The success of 1971 elevated intelligence in the state repertoire. While the legacy of 1971 finally came to haunt India in Kashmir, the elevation has rebounded in an unexpected way in the rest of India.  This is despite knowing that that intelligence indulgences have a tendency to bite back. Its subsequent forays into the intelligence game have had mixed results: be it the support for Al Zulfiqar and the like being reciprocated by ISI's Khalistan connection and its LTTE link leading up eventually to the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. This only underlines the well known fact that the intelligence instrument is double edged. The blowback from US and Pakistani support to the Mujahedeen is the best example. And yet, states seldom learn, condemned to repeating mistakes. However, in India's case the 'lesson' needs spelling out.  Currently, the CBI noose is closing round the neck of Rajendra Kumar, a Special Director in IB looking towards retirement, for his doings as the IB representative in Gujarat during the infamous episodes of killings of supposed 'terrorists' out to get the chief minister, Mr. Modi. The problem is not in an officer going rogue, but in the pattern that emerges from incidents like Ansal Plaza and Batla House. There is the similar Sadiq Jamal case. The military intelligence has had its own scandal with its members spearheading Abhinav Bharat in a right wing conspiracy to paint India's minority black. There are instances of the investigation agencies in league with intelligence agencies, such as Maharashtra's ATS and Delhi's Special Cell, pulling their punches in following up on leads, hoping that their fingers pointing at extremist members of the minority are adequate evidence of the minority's culpability for terror acts. Such instances are legion in Kashmir, most notable and egregious being the Chittisingpora-Pathribal case. But the one with more extensive consequence was the sustenance of the unspeakable Ikhwan. However, the one that takes the cake is the revelation by RVS Mani, a formerundersecretary in the home ministry, implying that a constituency exists on an alternative version on the origin of the terrorist attack on Parliament. There are reasons for the situation having come to such a pass. The ISI being a formidable opponent, perhaps required India to also allow the intelligence function greater autonomy than warranted in decent democracies. Second, India's association of late with the Americans and Israelis is also rubbing off on India, with India's capacity building being invested in by these states. Third, a government's misuse of the intelligence function leads the agencies in question to bid for greater impunity. Fourth, intelligence operations can help set the stage for pushing through other measures that would otherwise not be permissible. For instance, in the Parliament attack case, RVS Mani's revelations suggests that the attack may have been carried out to enable passing of 'draconian' laws. Lending credence to the theory is the timeliness of the attack in strategic terms to the launch India's largest military mobilisation, Op Parakram.  Last, India's strategic culture has been somewhat somnolent. To conservative-realist quarters that are in awe of Kautilyan thought, India requires goading to exercise power. Leaving the threat perception and a challenging security circumstance to Pakistan to create was not enough. Pakistan's efforts required supplementing by black operations implicating it. This had useful diplomatic dividend. Also, it would come in handy in case India was to need a justification for 'Cold Start'. Increasing the terror attacks that could be attributable to ISI and its alleged internal abettors could in the event justify Cold Start as self-defence against cumulative attacks amounting to an armed attack. However, these strategic reasons are less salient for intelligence agencies reaching levels of autonomy from accountability almost rivalling the ISI. The more significant reason has to do with internal politics. The conservatively inclined intelligence agencies have gravitated to the ideology of the right. This has compromised professionalism somewhat to the benefit of the right wing in polity that has taken care to penetrate the agencies as its first step in the take-over of the state. Therefore, if India lurched to the right over the nineties, the intelligence agencies went a step further, if not altogether overboard. The subsequent period of the NDA in government ensured that even if displaced from power, their residue would be firmly left behind on state institutions, in particular the agencies. State intelligence apparatuses under right wing governments in provinces were additionally available for black operations. Rogue elements with subterranean linkages to rightist political formations complete the picture.  This is the direction to look at when contemplating the terror attacks India has been subject to over the past half decade and more, not excluding the latest one in Bodh Gaya. Since intelligence agencies themselves need to look in this direction, there is little likelihood of them doing so. This makes the case being made out here a 'conspiracy theory' for lack of evidence. The shortfall does not owe to evidence being wanting, but that it is not being looked for in first place. To insist would be anti-national. Further, painting a false picture is an intelligence function. In the Bodh Gaya case, the readiness to lap up the theory that this is Muslim backlash for the Buddhist suppression of Rohingya and Sri Lankan Muslims owes to the success of the narrative of Muslim extremism. This completes the circle in which there is then no compulsion to look for evidence. To take another illustration, threat perceptions are manufactured to obfuscate the decline in terror instances in Kashmir since 2004, in order to keep justification for the military grip on Kashmir alive. They are plausible to begin with, such as Pakistan's refusal to dismantle the terror infrastructure and Kashmiri disaffection having potential to rekindle the fire. However, the narrative of threat is so pitched that the status quo represented by the AFSPA is frozen. Consequently, the several peace initiatives in Kashmir have been wrecked on the shoals of comments of intelligence czars on their practicability and consequences. The 'wait and watch' policy in place in Kashmir at least for half a decade now owes to the intelligence picture that come 2014, it would be back in business in Kashmir for Pakistan. Needless to add, such a self-fulfilling prophecy serves the interests of the security sector best.  The inescapable conclusion is that intelligence agencies have not only been a major instrument of policy, but that this has been through policy choice. The unintended affect has been in India arriving at the cusp of reversal between the means and the master. What needs doing is not merely exercising political control over intelligence, but interrogating the understanding that makes intelligence the instrument of choice. This is the first step to keeping India secular, democratic and free over the long duree.  (The author writes at www.subcontinentalmusings.blogspot.in)

What if Modi makes it to Race Course road

http://www.milligazette.com/print/issue/1-15-july-2013

Mr. Modi has thrown his hat in the ring. His opponent, the Congress scion, nowhere to be seen, it is apparent that NaMo will be seen as a credible prime ministerial candidate. The BJP had to discard its geriatric mascot and get another in his image, another pretender to the title of Sardar Patel II. However, the Nitesh Kumar early rebuff has unmistakably brought home that NaMo’s ascendance to 7 Racecourse Road is not quite certain. The effect of this will be in an energised campaign by Modi, that can be expected to witness subterfuge and outright lies. The ends being taken by his lobby as justifying the means, low blows will be par for the course. Therefore, suffering through a Modi era must be prepared for, howsoever distasteful the prospects of such miscarriage of democracy. What can such an era entail?

Firstly, getting Modi into the chair would require some manouvering by the right wing combine. The propaganda machinery will be in full swing and will draw on the work of unsuspecting conservative-realist strategists. Modi will have access to corporate coffers and middle class talent, in the hope that his reign will unleash the long awaited second phase of economic reform seen as necessary to put India into the China league. However, to unite the majority as a vote bank, Modi will emulate his predecessor in reviving the Ayodhya campaign, perhaps with a promise to build the temple at the site of the demolished mosque. Modi will project himself as the ‘strong man’ who can rout the Maoists at the gates. A contrived linkage will be drawn between the Maoists and Muslim radicals, conveying the imminence of a threat where none exists. The unsubtle scape-goating of the minority for bomb blasts will come into high gear. Instance of Hubli, Dilshadnagar and Malleswaram will be oftener. The Pakistan front will see some rhetorical fireworks in order to try and project the minority as a fifth column. The draw-down of the US from Afghanistan and the return of the Taliban will be seen as a looming ‘Muslim fundamentalist’ threat to India.

Clearly, these gimmicks to get Modi to office will outlive his getting there. They will form the agenda of his regime. Not only will the business classes prosper but will do so at expense of the voting public. In order that the elite is not distanced from the masses and the latter do not devour the former through a left-ward lurch, elite-mass integration will take place by projecting the problems that will arise on the ‘Other’. The ‘Other’ in the form of the Muslim minority has been assiduously manufactured by the right wing over the past three decades. The public however will be fed the toxic cocktail of religion and nationalism, with the minority as an internal bogeyman that is externally abetted. Thus, Modi will inject insecurity into society in order to reap stability in a ‘rally round the flag’ strategy. Projecting himself as the messiah to deliver the much-put-upon majority from a thousand years of eclipse, he will seek to perpetuate his regime. His support infrastructure in the sangh parivar will use the opportunity for ideological expansion with the intent of celebrating the coming centenary of the RSS in style. In other words, Modi will not be a one-term wonder, but will spend his first term creating the conditions for the next since his ideological benefactors need that much time to reset India. This scenario and its prospects suggest that it is not merely an election that is ahead but an era.

There is no guarantee of this, after all the majority community is not imbecile. With five thousand years of civilisation behind it, assuming that they will be taken in by Modi’s campaign is to disrespect their good sense and culture. Besides India’s poor, who form India’s voting public, are not likely to be overwhelmed in numbers by the Chetan Bhagat reading middle classes so enamoured of NaMo. Modi’s supposed developmental miracle in Gujarat has an underside that will directly affect them: that the rate of poverty reduction has been below India’s average even if the growth rate has  been higher. The former is what will swing the electoral verdict. Besides, his challenger, Mr. Gandhi, may yet have an ace up his sleeve, being cooked up and delivered by his think tank in Jawahar Bhawan. Congress has a way to woo masses, the latest being the idea of undercutting middlemen by delivering social security cheques variously named right into bank accounts of prospective voters. With right minded politicians as Nitesh Kumar willing to stand up to the communal tide, pessimism is unwarranted.

However, the paradox is that these challenges will prompt the saffron dirty tricks department to work overtime. They will attempt create conditions in which common sense is rudely pushed aside. The theme will be a Bush-like: ‘if you are not with us, you are against us’. Identity politics shamefacedly practiced can prove fatal to secular exercise of votes. Also, Modi’s is a considered move. He is not growing any younger. Waiting for longer will make him lose out to his younger opponent. He is clearly not playing to lose. Gujarat can no longer contain his ambition. He has to move. So Delhi it is. Being divisive and authoritarian, he can hardly be expected to forge coalitions a’la Vajpayee. He has therefore to fight to win. This means his campaign will be ruthless and designed to showcase him as a winner out to gain a place in the sun for the greater glory of Hinduism rather than a secular democratic India.

This suggests that while it may be premature to be pessimistic, it would be realistic to prepare for a Modi victory. Once in office, Modi will have the state machinery feeding from his hands; as he has had in Gujarat. As in the Emergency, state minions will compromise with governance, obeying RSS and VHP hatchet-men elevated to state power as ministers and legislators. The minority having been pushed to a corner will have to will itself to survive and outlast the dark times. How it does so will be a test not only of its moral strength but also that of the good sense of the majority community. To be sure, there will be challenges posed to the rulers. This will be from the secular-liberal spectrum, but is liable to be easily ignored and if required crushed. The more substantial backlash to corporate led growth will likely be from the Maoists, expanding their influence due to the fallout on the common man of economic policies serving sectional interest. Increased violence and the retribution may be witnessed. Given this environment and one in which the minority is directly victim, what must guide its response?

There is no doubt that whatever suggestions there may be in this column, there would be minority extremists mirroring majority extremists. Their dialogue of violence cannot but continue since being hotheads they are predisposed to such action. This may be inescapable in order to dampen the ardour of the majority extremists for any notion of a ‘final solution’. In any case, self-defence is a birthright. However, for the common people abjuring social violence will be necessary lest any association with violence lead to justifying the stereotype and retribution. Instead using the opportunities that are available for concentrating on bettering ones condition may be one way out. Forging regional, social and class unity will help with building bonds to sustain. Plumbing the wellsprings of religion and culture for resources for resilience may be required. False leaders will have to be run out of town. Collaborators will need to be educated and weaned away. Where incorrigible due to economic or power incentives they must be forced away from contaminating social spaces. Building social transparency and ties with neighbours of the majority community will act as propaganda by deed to dispel the false propaganda that will fill prime time. These ties built will over time help eject the regime and the reject its ideology. India will then emerge cleansed into democratic light.

This is a scenario that might not come to a pass. Awareness of it can energise the bulwark against the NaMo campaign beginning to unfold. It can have a sobering effect on otherwise intelligent and graceful people liable to be deluded into believing that they need a saviour through manufactured insecurity. In case the great Indian democratic project is usurped, then outlasting Hindutva may require prior creation of the reserves and imagination in a valiant democratic counter over the coming year.

By Firdaus Ahmed http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=17842 Kashmir Times Implications of a NaMo foreign policy NaMo has spoken. Narendra Modi, in his bid for prime ministership has fired off a salvo on foreign policy while addressing the Gujarati diaspora in the US. Disallowed from going to the US due to his government's record against minorities, including tribal Christians, he had to rest content to discourse via a video-uplink. His main point was that India's is a 'soft' policy, the implication being that with a 'strong leader' at the helm (meaning 'himself'), India could stride the world stage as a regional power and global player.  He said that while it was alright for the Chinese to have withdrawn from Indian territory at Daulat Beg Oldi, why did Indian forces need to do likewise when the territory was deemed Indian. The second illustration he used for India's pusillanimity was in the positive vibes on ascendance of Nawaz Sharif in Islamabad. He wondered why India needs to sup with Sharif when Pakistan had only recently taken back severed heads of Indian soldiers at the Line of Control. These allusions to the government's alleged foreign policy missteps, suggest that his would be a different foreign policy; an assertive, if not aggressive, one. What would such a foreign policy imply for the state and nation?  That the government is watchful of its flanks occupied by NaMo is evident from its somewhat stand-offish approach to the change of governments in its two prominent neighbours, China and Pakistan. While China has gone out of its way to make India as the first foreign destination for its new leader, Li Keqiang, Nawaz Sharif has indicated the promise of a new beginning. Yet, India has been reticent in its reciprocation. The opportunity could have been used to make bolder strides, but instead a 'wait and watch' game has been preferred by the government, naturally circumspect in light of approaching elections and the threat of NaMo taking advantage of any 'soft' actions it may take. This indicates that the NaMo critique is a serious one, and on that account needs fleshing out in terms of its implications both internally and externally.  However, the NaMo position cannot be taken as the traditional conservative-realist position on foreign and security policy. The conservative-realist impetus in India's policy has always been strong. Sardar Patel epitomised it in the early years. Nehru was influenced by it and is consequently termed a 'liberal-realist' by revisionist foreign policy wonks. Indira Gandhi was once likened by an adversary, Vajpayee, as Durga. Rajiv Gandhi was at the helm when India made its first bid for regional dominance. The NDA government has to its credit the Bomb, a war (Kargil) and a near war (Op Parakram). Likewise this government has presided over the largest buildup of India's security forces since 1962: the CRPF for internal security and the Indian military's expansion for its China border. In effect, India's policy can be taken as already a conservative-realist one. Therefore, if NaMo is still unimpressed, then he obviously intends to take it further, impelled by a self-image as Sardar Patel II. Any further, the policy can only be extremist; conservative to reactionary. How will such an India look? It is a popular myth that foreign and security policies are about the external domain. The reality is that factors - threats and opportunities - in the external sphere are mustered for internal political purposes. Therefore, the more significant drivers of foreign policy lie within a polity. Since a NaMo regime in its first tenure will want to self-perpetuate in order to remake India in the image of Gujarat, it would be more than a reprise of NDA I. Imagine a NaMo hand at the rudder rather than that of a Vajpayee. Recall Vajpayee could not dismiss Modi for the Gujarat carnage that he otherwise viewed as travesty of 'Rajdharma'. The opportunity in saddle would be to reset not merely foreign policy alone, but to use it to reset India. Externally, India will have China and Pakistan arraigned against India. While this will help warm the US to Modi, NaMo's preference for an India under siege owes to it giving ample scope for raising nationalist, if not chauvinist, passions. Nothing can do this better than a 'clear and present' 'danger at the gates'. Such false consciousness has political utility. It will help with homogenisation of a diverse country, along the lines argued for about a century by the right wing political-cultural formation, the RSS, the ideological fount and institutional anchor for Modi. Pakistan can be expected to respond appropriately by in the very least opening up the Kashmir front. Adversarial relations will be used internally to bracket India's largest minority with the external foe. This will carry the 'fifth column' discourse that made an advent with the 'IM' thesis over last decade to its logical conclusion. If the earlier Murli Manohar Joshi tenure is any indication, the ideological forces unleashed under the benign watch of an NDA II will use the contrived external-internal linkage to gain control not only over the policy space but also the imagination. Replicating the Gujarat model on a national scale would be to revisit Emergency. While then institutions crawled when they were merely asked to bend, this time their reaction can only be encouraging of authoritarianism, the leadership model of Modi in Gujarat. The million mutinies that will be sparked by Modi's economic model, another import from Gujarat, will be subject to the 'jackboot'. This will further energise the 'one volk, one fuehrer' thesis of the far right.  Since NaMo has fired the first shot in the security debate that will attend the run up to elections over the coming year, his strike must be engaged with. To dismiss it as revealing a mufassil level understanding of national security would be to miss the internal implications, to which Modi, the politician, is better attuned than foreign policy pundits. The conservative-realists who dominate the discourse need to be apprised of the dangers of their intellectual wares being appropriated for purposes that they have little understanding of, leave alone any control.  (The author can be contacted at Think South Asia: http://www.subcontinentalmusings.blogspot.in/)

Indo-AfPak: Chanakya To The Rescue?

In becoming a strategic partner of Afghanistan, the message to Pakistan was that India could up the ante in case Pakistan took to its old ways in Kashmir

http://tehelka.com/indo-afpak-chanakya-to-the-rescue/

Close on the heels of Afghan President Karzai’s questioning of the Durand Line as border between Pakistan and his country and the defence minister of Afghanistan calling for military assistance from India, President Karzai arrived in Delhi for soliciting defence aid. Chanakya adherents in South Block, where the defence and foreign ministries vie for space, and Sardar Patel Bhawan, where the National Security Council is located, are no doubt delighted. Finally, they can work Kautilya’s theory that states ‘an enemy’s enemy is a friend’ and its Mandala corollary that concentric circles ring a state: the first circle of enemies followed by that of friends.

India can now look forward to making Pakistan face both ways, to its North and East. This can repay Pakistan for its participation along with China in creating a similar dilemma for India, the ‘two front’ problem. Incidentally, the latest reference to this perception in India was in the recently released Blue Book by China that discusses India. The proportion of India’s military might that is Pakistan centric automatically then is reduced, enabling partial redressing of the strategic balance by Pakistan. To proponents of Chanakya-niti, India by responding positively to Afghanistan can tip the scales in India’s favour.

Incidentally, this option has been India’s quiver now for over a decade. The National Democratic Alliance regime had in its initial phase attempted to take the ‘Gujral doctrine’ further. The doctrine was about reaching out asymmetrically to neighbours, though Pakistan had not been initially included. Even so, it was Gujral’s foreign secretary, Salman Haidar, who had set the frame that the BJP government could take forward. In the event, the Pakistan army sprung an ambush on Vajpayee’s Lahore initiative by ‘doing a Kargil’ on India.

Thereafter, with the aftermath of 9/11 providing a backdrop, India has contemplated getting even. The parliament attack provided justification while the Baluch uprising provided an opportunity. India’s presence as peace -building partner in Afghanistan provided India an access. The result was in Musharraf sending in over seven Pakistani brigades to pacify the Baluch. Pakistan has raised the issue of nexus that India has consistently denied. However, it is no coincidence that two chiefs of India’s intelligence of the period today run prominent conservative think tanks in Delhi.

After reminding Pakistan that it lived in a glass house and therefore must not throw stones at others, Vajpayee set the frame for the policy over the remainder of the decade. The result has been in a dialogue process carried forward by the successor UPA I regime that was derailed by 26/11. The liberal paradigm of economic interdependence soothing security concerns underlay relations in the period. In the event, the crisis revived the idea of keeping Pakistan unbalanced in order to defuse the tendency for strategic activism in its security establishment. This could be through using Afghanistan as a springboard.

The idea owes to the US intent to draw down beginning with Obama’s first term. The ‘boots on ground’ thesis made an appearance. It harked to the earlier soliciting of India’s troops by US for its Iraq misadventure, a request India narrowly managed to avoid. In Afghanistan, the US was more circumspect, aware that Pakistan was indispensible and would be riled were India to be more visible or militarily proactive. India therefore has played a discreet role in training the Afghan National Army, alongside its peace-building activities.

In becoming a strategic partner of Afghanistan, the message to Pakistan was that India could up the ante in case Pakistan took to its old ways in Kashmir. Pakistan has played with a straight bat in Kashmir. The Hizbul Mujahedeen chief, resident in Muzaffarabad, has indicated that he has pulled out his fighters from Kashmir. The hiatus however owes more to both states holding their breath on the way the dice will turn in 2014.

The first shot has already been fired by a leading candidate for the prime minister’s post, Narendra Modi, expressing his dissatisfaction with both India’s Pakistan and China policies in a video interaction with his supporters in the diaspora. This suggests that the Chanakyan idea will find ballast during the run up and possible traction thereafter in case of a conservative party victory at the polls. It will have the ‘strong leader’ – Modi’s term paraphrased – necessary to push it. It therefore merits dissection.

It supposedly has its advantages. The US would not mind a regional minder in the form of India stepping up, a role it has through its extensive military and strategic interface with India over the past decade assiduously prepared India for. To the US, it will prevent a vacuum developing that may otherwise get filled by China. Obliging the US will take India beyond the de-hyphenation with Pakistan. With China proving difficult, through its demonstration at DBO (Daulat Beg Oldi in Ladakh) recently, proximity with the US may be useful, if not indispensible. The downside may help keep Pakistan circumspect. The move will signal India’s arrival as a self-regarding regional power.

The pitfalls are apparent. Clearly, what the US could not do for Afghanistan despite of its ‘surge’, India cannot hope to: tame the Taliban. As for Pakistan being impressed, it would likely resort to reopening the Kashmir front. The Taliban will be only too willing to lend a hand. It will get India into a regional geopolitical contest with China. Surely, unsettled borders are an adequate headache between nuclear armed neighbours.

More importantly, it would pitch India and the erstwhile Northern Alliance versus Pakistan and Taliban. This renewed regional brawl will have internal political implications for India in terms of the political utility for the right of cornering India’s minority. With elections round the corner and prospects of a right wing government reasonably high, setting such a stage would be suicidal for the Congress government.

Therefore, India would do well to keep the disciples of Chanakya confined to the television studios rather than allowing them entry into policy chambers.

Daulat Beg Oldi: More than a storm in a tea cup

By Firdaus Ahmed

Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO)has now entered the lexicon. It will, if strategic commentary critical of the government is anything to go by, in future define the pusillanimity of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government over its two terms. UPA I had its inaction in face of 26/11, while UPA II would be remembered for its dissembling over DBO. Its attempts to forestall such criticism by taking the defence budget to over two lakh crore rupees, positioning India as the leading importer of arms over a five year period, expanding its army by adding a mountain corps comprising two divisions, surreptitiously lining up with the US in global geopolitics, and opening up high altitude airfields, incidentally even at DBO itself, will find mention only in the footnotes. That it has successfully managed to have the Chinese revert to their side of the Line of Actual Control without much ado will be forgotten.  The UPA has created these conditions for itself and also the current face off. The 'grand old party' has been unable to depart from the Nehruvian paradigm of viewing borders: Indian territory is what it claims as its own. The maximalist interpretation of where India's borders lie is deemed to have penetrated Indian psyche, constraining India's diplomatic position. Consequently, its negotiations with China have not gone beyond aiming to manage the interim till a final settlement. It has been unable and unwilling to condition the Indian mindset away from seeing borders as lines that can be negotiated.  India feels it can step back from the Nehruvian border paradigm only at this final stage. By a timeline up to end decade, it hopes to have geared up militarily. Its nuclear triad in place, offensive capability on the border and sea control through the air craft carriers in the pipeline will give it the confidence not only to impress China but more importantly to sell the inevitable tradeoffs to its people. This is seen as necessary to enable the government to convey to Indians that concessions, such as on Aksai Chin, are not through fear or coercion but arrived at between equals.  Also the centre-right ruling party is wary of its flank occupied as it is by its conservative challenger, the BJP, not-so-covertly assisted by far right formations. The right, claiming monopoly of nationalism, would not have allowed the Congress any leeway in terms of 'concessions'. The Congress, tied down by dynastic compulsions, cannot fault the Nehruvian legacy. Thus, this binds the UPA and at one move India finds itself in.  The run up to end decade has imponderables: China's actions being one. While China could otherwise have waited till end-decade, it is uneasy with India's US tilt. India, impressed by rising Chinese power, has sought to balance against this through forging relations with the US, as also a defence relationship in terms of military exercises and arms deals. Watching India cosying up with the US, China is sending India a signal to stay out of US designs for containment of China by a ring of democracies. The intrusion could alternatively have a lesser aim of diverting India while its ally, Pakistan, goes to the polls.  China knows it has the upper hand at the moment, one set to dissipate as India gets its act together. This explains its choice of timing. Its point conveyed or, in the alternative explanation, with Pakistan going into elections without a crisis on its India border, the DBO intrusion, sensibly played down by it, has been retracted. The visit of the Chinese premier due soon will ensure that it is confined to history. However, such instances will likely recur in case the LAC is not converted into an IB soon.  It is noteworthy that China's borders with all states other than India and its ally, Bhutan, have been settled. Assuming that Indians cannot countenance the concessions negotiations necessarily imply, India has held back. Believing that China has a head start in its military and infrastructure development in Tibet, India is attempting to catch up with border roads, military deployments and airfield construction coming up simultaneously in a truncated timeframe. The strategic discourse has provided the cover in painting China as a threat and a future India-China clash over space in Asia. The UPA has so far been mindful of not being stampeded by strategist-manipulated and media-fanned public opinion, thanks to a China hand at the rudder, that of National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon. Over reacting to DBO, compelled by elections just over the horizon, can find India replicating the 'forward policy', adopted in the run up to 1962.  India has the option of reappraising the assumption. Studies ranging from the early one by Neville Maxwell to the more recent scholarly works by AG Noorani and Srinath Raghavan suggest that there is more to India's position on the border than the popular narrative of China stabbing India in the back in 1962. Political investment is needed in educating the Indian public that borders are never self-ordained but mutually arrived at.  This admittedly is easier said than done because DBO has wider connotations. What can be expected to figure in strategic discourse generated by a right tilting strategic community will be its showing up India as a 'soft state'. The corollary left unstated in sober commentary, but circulated uninhibitedly in middle class e-groups, will be that a different political order, if not a 'strong man', is needed lead endangered India to salvage national pride. The Congress, on the back-foot over at least half a decade, cannot hope to win the prime-time battle.  The two agreements on peace and tranquility on the Line of Actual Control could not prevent DBO. Neither party can guarantee that a future stand-off will not come to blows. There is even the argument that the agreements were to buy India time to get out of tight spot the nineties brought on by the budget squeeze and Kashmir. Having broken out now it can take on China. However, it overlooks China's advantages. The Kargil War in which small scale mountain warfare was witnessed made clear that the investment to offset these advantages is prohibitive in light of competing priorities. Besides, the ugly nationalism that such border incidents ignite hardly helps for sobriety in politics or in reacting. Therefore, the alternative option of public education must be worked towards, perhaps beginning with inclusion in a party's manifesto for the forthcoming elections. Since both leading parties have a sense of ownership of the policy as it is now two decades old, finding a promise for such a shift in theirs may be difficult, but not impossible. Both had bought into a policy that eventually envisages barter. Only, the timing of this needs being advanced by half a decade to the very next term of government, whichever party wins. They will be surprised to find that the public will unlikely begrudge either, enabling India to get out of the Nehruvian bind with bipartisan backing.  (The author is a blogger at Think South Asia http://kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=16664/)

Countering insurgency and sexual violence

By Firdaus Ahmed

http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=16237 The Indian Army's powers under Armed Forces Special Powers Act have rightly figured in the debate surrounding sexual violence particularly since the barbaric rape in New Delhi early this year. To the pro-army side, the army is self-regulating and any incidents that do take place are 'aberrations'. To the activists, the army is high on testosterone all the while in counterinsurgency and therefore requires its powers clipped. The army's own position when faced with allegations of sexual transgressions in operational areas by its members is that it takes action where warranted but notes that most accusations are propaganda of anti-national forces. The truth is, as is usually the case, somewhere in between. The debate understandably was taken on board by the Justice Verma Committee and the outcome has figured in its speedily arrived at recommendations. Justice JS Verma requires that the infamous provision of the AFSPA that calls for sanction by the central government for initiating prosecution against armed forces personnel be removed where a sexual offence is alleged. This has something for both supporters of the army and its critics. It does not degrade the powers the military thinks it needs in such areas. But it does remove the cover of impunity that critics of the military argue allows the military to get away. However, the army's view that it would open the army up to false allegations needs to be taken on board. The counter insurgency environment is considerably complex. The insurgents have an active body of over ground workers who can be deployed as a dirty tricks department. Once in the dragnet of the Indian court system, particularly one subject to militant intimidation, well meaning soldiers acting in good faith could find themselves on the firing line. Truth will be the first casualty and morale the second. Vindication, after the better part of youth has been expended fighting off the allegation, is hardly the fate a nation would want for those who have signed up to defend it to the peril of their lives. If soldiers are sent into such environments by a government, all they ask is a fair cover. Such cover from military excesses no doubt must be afforded citizens in the affected areas also. Justice Verma's second point on 'command responsibility', a senior's duty to prevent and take action in such cases, is pertinent here. If the senior leadership sets a command climate that encourages juniors to take an unfair advantage of additional powers, the central government must demand of the military hierarchy the reason why it has not proceeded with prosecution on its own under the Army Act. Tactical level commanders such as the infamous Major Avatar Singh are as much a product of the command climate set by their seniors as they are subject to their inner psychological pathologies. Where explanation offered by the army is found wanting, it must be entered into confidential records of culpable commanders under supervision of the ministry and where necessary administrative, and depending on the gravity, criminal proceedings be launched against erring commanders. Merely shifting them out to other assignments as was the case with the division commander in the Pathribal incident is not enough. That this was done in the case suggests that the state had much to hide and could not risk having its officials prosecuted, lest they spill the beans. Command climate, the degree of permissiveness (or otherwise) of violations in conducting counter insurgency operations, is perhaps the most significant variable that either promotes or deters violations. A command climate is permissive when it allows greater leeway to tactical commanders in pursuit of quantifiable 'results' such as militants killed. The tacit bargain is in the commander overlooking cutting of corners in such pursuit so long as 'results' in terms of statistics of militants killed keep rolling in. Such commanders end up having to look the other way in cases of transgressions since they would be implicated for abetting short cuts in means and methods in case they quarrel with their tools. The infamous Manorama Devi case is apt example. Why did the army defend the indefensible? The popular narrative of the case holds water. Believing Manorama Devi to be an explosives expert, the army had ordered her elimination in custody, lest she be let off by the courts. Obviously, those the army ordered to carry out the killing took advantage of the situation. Fearing that the officer would spill the beans if tried for rape and custodial death, the hierarchy had to protect him and the troops involved. The logic in higher command echelons was perhaps that the image of the army was more important than justice. The government for its part, equally privy to the facts of the case, and unwilling to face down the army or face uproar in the North East, played for time by ordering a committee on AFSPA, the BP Jeevan Reddy Committee, and having outlasted the agitations, dispensed with the committee's recommendations. Even where the command climate is strictly professional, as was the case in Kashmir in the early nineties, a Kunan Poshpora can yet occur. At the time the commanding general in the Valley was MA Zaki, described by Manoj Joshi in his book Lost Rebellion as: 'fortunately for India the man commanding the Indian Army's 15th Corps was a cool professional soldier, a Hyderabadi Muslim who had served the Army with distinction. The courageous and deeply religious officer was fated to play a major role in the affairs of the state.' MA Zaki later led Jamia Millia Islamia out of troubled times in the late nineties. That Kunan Poshpora dates to his tenure suggests that there is more to the case than the cult status the case has through its retelling become as one of a mass rape. Reputed bureaucrat, Wajahat Habibullah, divisional commissioner in the Valley when the incident occurred, refers to it in his book on Kashmir, Kashmir: The Dying of the Light, informing that he had recommended an inquiry in his preliminary inquiry report. The government instead had the then chairperson of the Press Trust of India, BG Verghese, look into the incident as part of his remit that had wider terms of reference. That the press was exploited by the over ground militants to replicate their narrative of Kunan Poshpora was one reason why BG Verghese headed to Kashmir. In his autobiography, First Draft, Verghese recounts that he was provided with the fullest access by Zaki to all relevant actors including officers and soldiers of the offending infantry unit. He was unable to find evidence either of the act or of an attempted cover up. In the event, the brigade commander had ordered search operations at night against explicit orders in the corps zone, thereby creating conditions in which sexual assault could occur. The opportunity was seized on by the militant sympathisers irrespective of the facts of the case and the long term implications for the lives of the women of the village. Blowing the case out of proportion in an information war campaign, truth was lost and so was justice. Had Wajahat Habibullah been more assertive then or not moved out of the Valley to a post in Delhi, a separate inquiry could have established the truth. The army was open to this. Tavleen Singh in her book, Kashmir: A Tragedy of Errors, recounts how Zaki reacted to her critical questioning of an incident of army high handedness in early 1990 resulting in civilian deaths. Zaki had admitted to it being 'unfortunate'. There was no attempt to underplay or avoid it. This indicates that an incident of the proportions of Kunan Poshpora could not have escaped Zaki's professional eye, particularly due to his renown as a commander leading from the front. Incidentally, he suffered a graze to his head in a fire fight with militants in one such encounter as head of the army in the Valley. Given such a record of integrity and grit, insinuations as attend the Kunan Poshpora now need revisiting. Stridency does not alone make for truth. It instead has the effect of the army's case becoming more plausible in their pointing out the perils of ambush by litigation. Siddharth Varadarajan has suggested an improvement to deter the government from sitting on decisions or denying clearances altogether, while preserving the provision of prior governmental permission. The government must be required, by an amendment to the Act, to furnish reasons for refusal for prosecution. Its reason must also be subject to judicial review. In case the court decides that the evidence outweighs the reason given, it can either override the government or, where reasons of national security and state are furnished, it could order the army to exercise military justice. This has precedence in the Pathribal killings case in which the army has been asked by the court to proceed with the court martial of those who killed innocent civilians to pass off the killings as those of militants involved in the Chittisingpora incident. That in its judgment the court has upheld the cover from prosecution in the Act implies that the provision is here to stay. Therefore, ensuring accountability of the ministry in its power to withhold or grant sanctions for prosecution must be built into the Act through amendment. Justice Verma's third point on review of the AFSPA in areas where it is applicable adds to the weighty voices against AFSPA. Yet, despite the solid case against the law and the credentials of those, such as late Justice Verma, arrayed against is, it appears set to stay on. Clearly, India is not out of the woods yet in terms of armed challenges to the state that require an armed response. What Justice Verma's report succeeds in doing is to push the argument past the tipping point that the law must be amended. Even then the law by itself is not enough. The command climate in the theatre of operations must - and can be - such as to make the law's existence irrelevant.